Posted by Jamie McGuire
on September 07, 2025
Switching to a low tox lifestyle doesn’t have to feel overwhelming. The truth is: a lot of the products in our homes - cleaners, cookware, even toilet paper, have chemicals that mess with our hormones, age us faster, and impact long-term health.
Over the years, I’ve slowly swapped out the toxic products for cleaner options. Below, I’m sharing exactly what we use in our house to lower toxins.
🧼 Cleaning Products
A lot of store-bought cleaning products look safe and “healthy” because of the bright packaging and fresh scents. But the truth? Chemical cleaning products are toxic to your health, hormones, skin, and indoor air quality.
If you’re working on reducing toxins in your life, your cleaning cabinet is one of the best places to start. Here’s why conventional products are harmful:
☣️ Chemical Cleaners Disrupt Your Hormones
Many cleaning products contain endocrine disruptors like phthalates, parabens, and synthetic fragrances. These chemicals mimic or block natural hormones in your body, causing imbalances in thyroid, reproductive, and stress hormones. Over time, this can contribute to fertility issues, irregular cycles, weight gain, and even premature aging.
☣️ Cleaning Products Pollute Indoor Air
Spray cleaners and fragranced products release volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into your air. These VOCs linger for hours and contribute to poor indoor air quality, asthma, allergies, and chronic lung irritation. Considering we spend up to 90% of our lives indoors, the buildup of these toxins adds up quickly.
☣️ They Damage Your Skin Barrier
Bleach, ammonia, and harsh surfactants strip the skin barrier, leaving you prone to dermatitis, eczema flare-ups, or long-term sensitivity. Your skin absorbs what you put on it, so using chemical cleaners without gloves means toxins are being absorbed directly into your bloodstream.
☣️ They Overload Your Detox Pathways
Your liver and kidneys work 24/7 to detoxify everything from food and water to stress and environmental pollutants. Adding daily exposure to toxic cleaning chemicals pushes your detox system into overload. Signs of toxic burden include fatigue, sluggish digestion, brain fog, skin breakouts, and accelerated aging.
☣️ “Fragrance” = Hidden Chemicals
On labels, the word “fragrance” can legally include hundreds of undisclosed chemicals. Most are petroleum-based, hormone-disruptive, and irritating to your nervous system. That “fresh scent” is actually toxic.
🧼 Switch to Non-Toxic Cleaning Products
+ Natural disinfectants like vinegar or hydrogen peroxide
+ Non-toxic multipurpose cleaners
+ Baking soda for scrubbing power
+ Wool dryer balls instead of chemical dryer sheets
+ Clean dish soaps + detergents
What we use instead:
🍳 Cookware & Kitchen Essentials
People might focus mainly on "clean eating", but how you cook your food is just as important as what you eat. The wrong cookware - like plastic utensils, plastic cutting boards, or non-stick pans can leach chemicals into your meals every single day. Over time, this can disrupt hormones, damage your gut, and increase toxic load on the body.
🔪 Plastic Cutting Boards
Every time you slice or chop on a plastic cutting board, tiny microplastics are released. These particles get into your food, especially when cutting hot or acidic foods. Once ingested, microplastics:
❌ Accumulate in tissues and organs
❌ Cause inflammation in the gut
❌ Disrupt hormones (endocrine disruptors)
❌ Contribute to oxidative stress and premature aging
🔪 Plastic Utensils
When exposed to heat (like stirring hot soup or flipping food in a hot pan), plastic utensils release chemicals such as BPA, phthalates, and other hormone disruptors. These compounds can:
❌ Mimic estrogen and throw off hormone balance
❌ Contribute to infertility, weight gain, thyroid issues
❌ Increase cancer risk with long-term exposure
🔪 Non-Stick Cookware (Teflon & PFAS)
Traditional non-stick pans are coated with PFAS (“forever chemicals”). When heated, they release toxic fumes and particles that never break down in the environment or in your body. PFAS exposure is linked to:
❌ Hormone disruption
❌ Liver damage
❌ Immune system suppression
❌ Fertility issues
❌ Cancer risk
Your cookware matters.
Cooking on toxic materials is like adding invisible chemicals to your meals every single day. By switching to safe, low-tox options like wood, stainless steel, cast iron, and ceramic, you protect your hormones, skin, gut health, and long-term well-being.
What we use instead:
+ Stainless steel or cast iron (I prefer stainless steel)
+ Glass food storage (no plastic containers)
+ Wood cutting boards & utensils
🍳 Shop my safe cookware + kitchen swaps here
🛏 Bedding & Sleep Environment
You spend one-third of your life in bed. We think about diet, skincare, or cleaning products when starting to live a lower-tox lifestyle, but one of the biggest (and most overlooked) sources of daily exposure is your bedding. Think about it: you spend 7–9 hours a night sleeping. That’s nearly a third of your life in close contact with fabrics and materials that can either support your health, or quietly harm it.
💤 Conventional Bedding Is Full of Toxins
Non-organic sheets, mattresses, and pillows are often treated with:
❌ Pesticides & Herbicides – Conventional cotton is one of the most pesticide-sprayed crops in the world. Those residues don’t magically disappear after harvesting.
❌ Formaldehyde & Flame Retardants – Many synthetic fabrics and mattresses are treated with harsh chemicals to make them wrinkle-free or “fire safe.”
❌ Dyes & Finishes – Artificial dyes, stain-resistant coatings, and anti-static treatments add even more chemical exposure.
💤 How Toxins in Bedding Impact Your Health
These chemicals don’t just “sit” in your sheets. Over time, they can:
❌ Disrupt hormones (endocrine disruptors)
❌ Irritate skin and worsen conditions like eczema, rosacea, or acne
❌ Trigger allergies or asthma from off-gassing and VOCs
❌ Interfere with sleep quality by exposing your nervous system to irritants
When your skin, the body’s largest organ, spends hours pressed against these fabrics, you absorb these toxins. And when you breathe at night, you’re also inhaling off-gassed chemicals from synthetic fibers and foams.
💤 Why Organic Bedding Is Different
Organic bedding is made from natural fibers like organic cotton, linen, hemp, or wool that are:
+ Grown without pesticides, herbicides, or GMOs
+ Processed without toxic dyes or finishes
+ Certified by standards like GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) or OEKO-TEX to ensure safety
Switching to organic bedding is one of the simplest and most impactful ways to reduce daily toxic exposure. Since you spend a third of your life in bed, it’s worth investing in fabrics that actually support your body’s healing, detox, and repair while you sleep.
What we use instead:
+ Organic cotton sheets & duvet covers
+ Non-toxic mattress & pillow
+ Silk pillowcases (good for skin + hair)
🛏 Shop my mattress, bedding + sleep favorites here
💧 Water & Air Quality
Clean water and clean air are non-negotiable. Tap water is full of chlorine, heavy metals, and PFAS. And indoor air is often more polluted than outside.
🚰 Why Clean Water Matters
You drink it, cook with it, shower in it, and wash your clothes with it. The problem? Tap water in most places isn’t as clean as it seems.
❌ Chemicals in Tap Water – Common contaminants include chlorine, fluoride, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and even heavy metals like lead. These can disrupt hormones, damage the skin barrier, and stress the liver.
❌ Skin & Hair Impact – Chlorine and hard water minerals strip your skin and hair, leading to dryness, irritation, and accelerated aging.
❌ Internal Health – Even trace toxins can accumulate in the body, impacting gut health, hormones, and energy levels.
Solution: Invest in high-quality water filters—sink filters for drinking/cooking, shower filters to protect your skin and lungs, and ideally a whole-home filtration system, but there are easier ways to start.
What we use:
+ Under-sink water filters
+ Countertop water filter for drinking
+ Shower filters
💨 Why Healthy Air Quality Is Essential
Indoor air can actually be 2–5x more polluted than outdoor air. Since most of us spend 80–90% of our time indoors, this adds up.
❌ Sources of Indoor Toxins: off-gassing from furniture, cleaning products, candles, mold, pet dander, dust, and even cooking fumes.
❌ Health Risks: Poor air quality is linked to allergies, asthma, brain fog, fatigue, hormone disruption, and even long-term disease risk.
❌ Skin Connection: Polluted air accelerates oxidative stress, leading to faster skin aging, inflammation, and breakouts.
Solution: Use high-quality air purifiers with HEPA + carbon filters, open windows daily for fresh airflow, avoid synthetic candles/plug-ins, and add air-purifying plants.
What we use:
💡 Wellness Tech (Red Light, PEMF, Vibration Plate, Blue Blockers)
These are the “extras” that make a big difference for skin, energy, and recovery.
What we use:
🚨 Red Light Therapy: boosts collagen, reduces inflammation, supports energy (I use this 3-5 days a week)
⚡️ PEMF Mat: supports circulation, healing, and recovery
🫨 Vibration Plate: great for lymphatic drainage + morning energy boost
🚽 Small Swaps
Even the smallest things matter.
🧻 Non Toxic Toilet Paper: choose chlorine-free, recycled, or bamboo
🩸 Organic Tampons: swap synthetic fragrance candles for clean, non-toxic options
💄 Beauty, Bodycare & Haircare
Skincare and makeup are some of the biggest offenders when it comes to hidden toxins. If you’re investing in healthy skin, but still using chemical-filled products, your results will always be limited.
What I use instead:
🫧 Professional-grade, non-toxic skincare
🪮 Haircare
Last Note:
Low tox living isn’t about being “perfect”, it’s about making intentional swaps that actually make a difference. Start with the things you use most (like cleaning products and water), and build from there.
👉 Browse all my Low Tox Living Favorites by category on my ShopMy page
xo,
Jamie